Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Anthologies & Short Stories

Valentine Welburn has grown accustomed to her freedom in Calcutta. So when she reaches the gray shores of England to debut in her first London Season, she is irked by the conventions of high society. With her irrepressible spirit, unusual beauty, and a large fortune, the stage is set for gossip. Scandal and intrigue ensue when two men - the distinguished Lord Marbeck and the dashing, dangerous Sir Richard Brindley - appear on the scene.

Leo Dershowitz gave up hope of artistic glory long ago. A mediocre painter at best, he relies on the generosity of women to pay the bills. One day, Leo stumbles across a grisly means of inspiration and - in a flash - his fate changes forever. Before long, nothing can stop Leo from creating masterpieces, but at what cost?

She will never forget that summer - when the bones began to surface. The decomposing skull of a dog, then that of a cat. Later, birds. Her parents even made a game of digging them up while the children played and kept the tiny trophies on display in their home. And then her cousin was implicated in a grisly murder. Did that strange find really mark the creation of a monster in their midst? From the acclaimed author of Monster comes this chilling story of a long-buried childhood memory and a family bent on denial.

In the seedy world of cockfighting, blade-enhanced winners slash their way to temporary victory while the losers end up in barrels to be fried and eaten. Nate's usual hard luck changes when "Graken" comes along. Graken is a strange creature who thrives on the fighting and never, ever loses. Now Nate and his new partner Jerry travel the cockfight circuit with the unbeatable beast, happy to let Graken show them the good times. But good times always have to end, and... Graken's gotta eat.

When Kate, a physics grad student recently dumped by her professor boyfriend, gets a frantic phone call from a childhood friend, she's more than happy for the distraction. Though she hasn't seen the luminous Lana in years, she can tell Lana's crisis is genuine: her younger sister's joined the Sisters of the Northern Star. The real story - of forgiveness, friendship, and lost hope - unfolds as the two drive from New York to Nevada to collect Lana's sister from a cult that may not be as dangerous as it seems.

From award-winning author James M. Tabor come these two dark tales about the power of loss and the cost of greed. In "Antiques", a father haunted by guilt over his son's suicide is drawn toward another world.

Ed and Kim experience unexpected consequences when they try to reunite their adopted daughter with her Native American heritage. The couple decides to take turns splitting their time between their Seattle condo and the second home they've built on the Montana prairie so Kaitlyn can get to know her birthplace.

"Spore" follows hard-working Rosália, a manicurist who has built herself a solid reputation and is trusted by her wealthy clients; that is, until she unexpectedly discovers her own dark side. Now she will have to go to great lengths to hide her twisted urges.

At once surreal and grounded in stark reality, these stories offer poignant, touching, and at times shocking insight into the lives and minds of women in modern Brazil. Varied in detail, each tale explores a woman's sense of identity and place, within Brazilian society and at vulnerable moments within her most intimate relationships. Diving deep to the raw psychological core of her protagonists, Leite shatters the traditional rules for both women and literature, producing a powerful voice of female rebellion.

After the violent, shadowy events surrounding his father's disappearance and his siblings' disbandment, Martín flees Mexico City with his wife, newborn son, and dog. Isolated and homesick in Madrid, Martín awakes one sticky, hot morning, quietly overwhelmed by the circumstances - his growing aversion to his son, the dog's sudden illness, and the vague unresolved danger from his abandoned homeland.

For twenty-two-year-old Julia, just out of college, Vancouver has become a social wasteland. Her boyfriend has gone off to London to study art history, leaving her feeling abandoned in the not-quite-derelict historic apartment where she is alone - surrounded by people. While working a series of odd jobs, Julia inadvertently befriends Oliver, one of her aloof neighbors.

Her father left years ago, her mother is dissolving into gin and cigarettes, and her brother has lost himself to drugs. In these four linked stories, a young woman tries to come to terms with the addiction and desertion that caused her family to crumble.

If only reality could resemble the fantasy of what pregnancy is supposed to be like - the brimming excitement, the feelings of significance, a healthy glow. But for Jenny, a young mother-to-be recently relocated from NYC to the suburbs, pregnancy hasn't done a thing to cure her incessant self-doubt and loneliness.

In a tripping and absorbing style, award-winning Brazilian writer Claudia Lage asks listeners to gaze into the dark side of love and desire, and ultimately even to sympathize with her flawed hero and heroine. A Little Death is both an unconventional love story and a raw, visceral tale that explores the journey to adulthood in all its complexity and hilarity.

The detective is losing his mind. Suffering from a panic disorder that has him haunting emergency rooms in rising waves of crisis, the detective begins to lose his grip - on his relationship with his fiery young lover, on his ability to work, on his health.

The two scientists meet when a lab rat escapes from its cage after giving birth. When they find the rat, they also discover one tiny, raw-pink baby, mewling despairingly at a frequency inaudible to human ears. From there, love - or some disjointed, broken version of it - develops between the scientists.

When Beatriz, lonely and desperate for money, places an ad as a writing consultant in the local paper, her first client is Dolores Maria Rubia de Alicanto, an imposing old widow who has hired her to transcribe the story of her life. Beatriz is taken aback when the woman starts with the words "My husband betrayed me..." and proceeds to relay a gripping story of deception, crumbled desire, and vengeance.

Pat, a Vietnam vet finished with marriage and booze, gets his dose of society sitting alone and dry at the local bar. One afternoon, watching a pre-season Red Sox game, he ends up next to a group of loudmouth writers gathered around a man in a wheelchair. The writers get under Pat's skin, and he says something lousy to the big-shot who, it turns out, is also a big-shot writer.

Nothing is what it used to be for our salesman narrator: not his family, not his commissions, not even the commuter jets that carry him from client to client. Having lost his top-of-the-heap status in his profession, he reflects on his new reality with a darkly comic perspective that resonates deeply with each of us who has desperately needed a new direction in life.

John, a widower and retired judge, has had a hard time letting go of the things that remind him of his beloved deceased wife, Millie: most of all their cherished robotic (but stunningly lifelike) spaniel, Sheila, who has been his stalwart companion for twenty-five years.